headlines on our t.v. the last robin terrorist stronghold in syria is surrounded as all parties involved in conflicts prepare for what could be a final showdown in the seventy eight year long war. will say to calm a prison strike in the u.s. and his its second week in what could become potentially the largest in american history activists are protesting in solidarity with inmates for conditions. and the scottish university setanta chance to its new students spelling out the gender pronouns they want to be known by we debate the sensitive issue of whether freedom of expression for minority infringes the rights of the majority if they want to say today on my mom tomorrow the next fridge freezer so well i don't have to say in

truth they are attacking my freedom of speech trans people do not choose to be trying to. make this the season about. without very very serious. stuff so what we should respect that. is just going to i am head in the russian capital we are watching the international welcome to the program the top story syrian army troops have been seen moving towards the frontline of the last stronghold of rebel terror groups in the country the northern province of idlib these are pictures from the grounds of tamed by a video news agency soldiers can be seen rising on top of lorries carrying tanks artillery and other military equipment offices say that troops are ready for the final battle against militants say fall they're waiting for the order.

syria has also been the focus of the latest un security council meeting it comes off to the backers of warring parties that have recently been accusing each other of pounds for escalating the situation artie's more and gusty of house more and how the involvement of the international community in the syrian war has made the potential escalation an extremely risky scenario. it is shaping up to be the end a lost showdown between jihad ists and the syrian army it is the last remaining stronghold of islam istead rebels tens of thousands of them the most powerful faction and it being h.t.s. or al-qaeda in syria and they're defiant cranking out and this propaganda.

bear in mind many of them not even syrians islamists on jihad from china from central asia from the caucasus from morocco to baghdad with nowhere left to retreat what's worse is the foreign power buildup in the region out of the blue u.s. cruise missile delivery systems guided missile destroyers strategic bombers a re basing and dropping anchor near syria days after the u.s. and its allies warned that take action if chemical weapons are used by as'ad and russia which is beefing up its own presence warns that it's the easily mists that are planning just that the us continues to expand its presence of cruise missile carriers in the middle east which is connected to the preparations for another

false flag incident allegedly involving chemical weapons russian reports of u.s. military buildup in the eastern med and nothing more than propaganda it's not true that does not mean however that were unprepared to respond should the president direct such an action the united states denies building up its forces but says it's ready to attack syria if need be the good news is that russia and the united states also apparently in talks to prevent any potential use. chemical weapons but the danger remains the worst case scenario an international escalation militarily the rebels stand little chance against the syrian army what could save them is a foreign intervention caused by for example a staged chemical attack. syrian armed forces have no chemical weapons and no plans to use them at the risk of there is no military necessity ford said this many times before sensible people will not use militarily useless means to draw the fire

of three powerful countries upon themselves on the other hand after announcing it and waiting for a false flag attack from militants these very same countries can start the environment that is what happened last time say the russians they staged the incident in ghouta that led to a u.s. french and british cruise missile barash against syria this time what with the military buildup the stakes and risks of an escalation will be much higher but it hasn't begun yet there will be a big conference on friday but chances of a peaceful resolution look slim the russian reconciliation center has been trying to broker a deal but the jihad just remain defiant our weapons are the source of our strength and honor thinking about surrendering to the enemy and handing over weapons will be

considered treason the worst of all is that there is many as two million civilians in need lib trapped between the hardest and the syrian army if talks fall through with chemical weapons a use that this battle drags on civilian casualties will saw not to mention the danger of an international escalation and escalation is imminent how that develops we don't know whether it. goes. very fierce in the form a very fierce confrontation between johnson on one side and its allies and syrian army and its allies on the other side we don't know we hope that. the twinned in other areas like most recently in southern syria where faction leaders understand that this is a force that they cannot. compete with or fight effectively and they see if their people their cities a lot of destruction and death in that case you know people could go back to

under government control as soon as possible to normality basically as soon as possible and we understand that many of them. are hoping to achieve such a feat. last month c.n.n. breaking news story about transforming lawyer michael cohen is still making headlines cohen's attain a had suggested his client had information on possible trumped russia collusion but has now backtracked on his claims. america has more on the story last month c.n.n. ran a story hyping it up as a bombshell claiming that trump's lawyer michael cohen had info that trump knew about his son's infamous trump tower meeting with a few russians in advance citing anonymous sources sources with knowledge told my cell phone call that michael cohen claims then candidate donald trump knew in

advance about the june twenty sixth meeting in trump tower crucially these sources tell us that cohen is willing to make that assertion to the special counsel robert mueller. cohen's attorney admitted that it was false on that very same network c.n.n. the reporting of the story got mixed up so michael cohen does not have information that president trump knew about the from terror meeting with the russians beforehand or you know does not now even though cohen's attorney retracted those claims on c.n.n. c.n.n. decided to run the story anyway and then defended their decision to run the story check it out we stand by our story and are confident in the reporting of it and it gets even better lanny davis cohen's lawyer admitted that he was one of cnn's anonymous sources saying that he can't corroborate cohen story other news outlets have retracted their claims but for some reason c.n.n.

hasn't saying quote we stand by our story which had more than one source and are confident in our reporting and that they also said that cohen's lawyers have flip flopped so there's also another element to this now apparently davis was one of c.n.n. sources but in its july twenty sixth story c.n.n. claimed that davis refused to comment so how does that work exactly unless c.n.n. lied about davis refusing to comment in order to protect his identity as one of its sources so it's unclear who's lying and who's telling the truth. well to discuss this let's cross live to raid that gov and form a cia officer write a very welcome to the program now lanny davis the attendee from michael cohen has backed away from his insinuations that cohere had information about trump's possible russia russia collusion and your opinion why would he do that. i am shocked i am shocked that lanny davis would lie actually i'm trying to be

funny he has a long long history of lying and now it's clear that he lied not once but twice or maybe three times. russia gate is the coin of the realm here if you have a story no matter how false you're out with it before anybody pays any attention to the sourcing call bernstein thank god he has to be good on board a gate but that was in the seventy's now he's one of the people that regurgitates what he's told so we have. we have a sleazy bunch of lawyers and i'd have to ed pundits and reporters who now are caught in this web of misinformation. speaking at all kinds of euphemisms for lying now there's an interesting aspect to all this glenn greenwald's who happens to be

a good reporter an excellent analyst and who is virtually alone and poking fun at the cable and the outlets in t.v. outlets in their passion to make sure that russia gate legend holes holes that the new yorker who is one of the main proponents of russia gate. its latest edition october third is than there are i've printed it out because it's not available in print yet. thirty nine pages thirty nine pages of character defamation of good greenwald whom i have to say is not only the best on this but he's the only one that has the well the the resonance the the format to demand to require a hearing in some media no less thing i'll say is that it will be very interesting

to see tomorrow whether for example democracy no which regularly has greenwald on as the only one expressing doubts about russia gate whether they'll tell this story because this story is as devastating as the one they greenwald exposed late last year when he exposed another real not folk but just a liar on the part of c.n.n. back to london davis just for a moment why is davis throwing cold water on the c.n.n. which from breaking news reports treating the story outside. well davis is caught in a lie and so he's got to first he tells. it tells the reporter no i did have didn't have anything to do with it was a mistake it was i misspoke it was just too confused and then he said oh yeah i guess yeah i did it so you know it's embarrassing it would be embarrassing but the

american people will not get this word in other words the washington post new york times wall street journal tomorrow will not carry this story and so we know what's going on here and we know that these people should be disgraced but c.n.n. they have not even retracted the story even though. sister or brother outlets and cable channels have let it davis is a sleaze he's been that way for a long time i mean you look at michael cohen and lanny davis you know. trump fell in with bad companions and now they're now they're lying their way out of a situation where they shouldn't have been in the first place if they told the truth as you just mentioned there as well c.n.n. is still defending its decision to run the story and they rocked him during say.

well you know they're right in doing so if they don't care about the truth i mean there's a slight possibility that c.n.n. had a different story but you have let me davis you have michael cohen say no no no we didn't we have no information we have new information that president trump knew about this trump tower meeting we don't have that so unless it's very unlikely unless there's some other source that c.n.n. had they are being what's the word unprofessional they're being unconscionable in healing to this a lie but you know what the american people know that we'll never know that they go with the first impression and they have the impression that trump blyde president trump lied when he said he was not told beforehand of this from our meeting i have to add here nothing happened that's from our meeting or set up by a sports promoter for godsake and there's no evidence that anything sinister

happened during that meeting despite the sinister. visitors' sleazeballs was involved let's talk about sources than according to the c.n.n. davis was only one of the anonymous sources on which they report depend and what other sources might they possibly have that are making them say confident. well i think they're pretending to be confident they're hoping this whole thing will blow over they're hoping that the press tomorrow will be full of this diatribe against clean cleanse greenwald so i don't think they have another source i would suggest that if they do have another source that to defend what's left of their reputation they need to serve up some information about this source or at least say no we had another source we didn't deploy we didn't depend on and on you know on this business from from the lanny davis so you know they can do that they can say

you know it wasn't lanny davis but they have not even done that but as i say they have no imperative to do that because on c.n.n. on and this n.b.c. and the cable and also the other outlets this story will kind of peter out and what people will remember is the first impression namely comply it again so then why is minutes team still trying to find russia collusion this being no evidence at least known released publicly for a year now. well you know this story as my colleague patrick lawrence has written is appropriately described as too big to fail ok now that means that so many people have such an investment in this legend. that it's going to be very difficult for them if if the molar

finds nothing well it's going to be very embarrassing what's the conclusion i draw from that well even though peter struck who looked into the russia gate thing for eight months was reluctant to join the molar investigation because as he said it is in his text to his lover there's no big they are there whoa so what is smaller going to let me speculate this is speculation now about fact. i suspect that rather than not find any there there there will speed they are inserted by people like former cia head john brennan sort of like weapons of russian yellowcake uranium or aluminum tubes they'll give that beer beer to robert muller and he'll go ahead with that and say well here we have it we have the good side donald trump now that will be a lie but c.n.n.

the new yorker they'll run with it ok so what will or will happen then well then they have to contend with the possibility that there's one honest lawyer left at the part of justice who will blow the whistle. now i don't know how it's going to come out but the stakes are very high you have the head of the f.b.i. the head of the justice department loretta lynch the head of the cia and others involved right rodents rosenstein included they they could be proven to have committed crimes now that's that's a lot to digest how can i explain that well it's very easily explained they expected hillary clinton to win. james comey has said that he said we were very we or i was operating in vironment what we fully expected hillary clinton to be the

next president of the united states period end quote well if that's what you could vince is going to happen you take your chances with the law and that's what happened ok well thank you very much failed thoughts that rain that goven for missing off a set thank you very much you're most welcome we've got more news from more news coming up after a short break. our .

welcome back to the program a scottish investee set to hand out badges to its new students to spell out the pronoun they want to be named by they hate she or they tags the part of an offense

to avoid so-called mis gendering the initiatives is to student union however it wants students should avoid using the temperature fed pronounce arguing it's not a preference but in the south a t. the issue of youngsters wanting to change gender has been increasingly staring control to say the i think tory atkins has expressed concern over the rising number of minus now wishing to go through reassignments. i read in the paper recently that there has been a large increase in the number of teenagers who are identifying nest transgender and i think though we need to get down to the reasons why this is happening it may simply be a case of greater warn us he may be that for some they see it as an answer to questions they are perhaps not asking themselves well we've debated the issue with activist pay to touch chill and radio talk show hosts jungle and. what is the

purpose of raise awareness in particular to make transfusions and their friends and allies and accepted it as innocent terrible thing i think it just because i know that person a return to of course famously with jordan p. as a fitting into these new pronouns if they want to say today are man i'm a fridge freezer so they have but i don't have to fainter i have to change pronouns i have to change the english language for a minority they are attacking my freedom of speech my freedom of expression let's be reasonable if somebody feels they are in the wrong but well no one is encouraging them and nor should anyone encourage them this is a call that is coming from the young people themselves whatever bar university is doing. if they have said people are very very serious long protracted thought they face often rejection by their parents being thrown out of home and very high rates of suicide and attempted suicide so this is not a decision that

a young person takes lightly and if they make the decision but they feel that they are one gender or another i think we should respect that i don't think it's a big deal too it's about common decency just about being kind and compassionate to other people so i don't i agree with that part of same token they should respect our rights to have a different view and when you talk about this this is always brought there than about trans and serious sides it isn't because they're struggling with the fact they think they're in the wrong body that leads generally to the suicide it's aster when they realise they've made a dreadful mistake which is why the woman's minister or the education minister is right to say we need to look at why more and more young people are trying to go through this we need to look at why puberty blocking drugs are being handed out like smarties they don't know their own mind i agree with you peter it must be agonizing to needs time. ministry thought about and they need to be of an age where

they know that they are in the wrong body not giving them out to six year old eight year olds and ten year olds and you know that's happening peter truong trans people are reality they've existed since time in war throughout history i think the fact that there are more people coming forward is because there is greater social understanding and acceptance the stigma and guilt is fading away that issue has been discussed more openly and that is why more people are coming forward into violence trans but it's still a tiny tiny minority a minority that is no threat to anyone and i think we should live and let live and except that people who are different for whatever reason including because their gender identity that they have a place in the human family. inmates in the us a staging what could become the largest prison strike in american history the peaceful protest

which is now into its second week has planned to last nineteen days and encompasses seventeen states present as a demanding an end to what they call modern slavery for the introduction of a number of reforms. that. have. come. back yard. was.

cut. red tape. i'll be back in thirty minutes with more headlines. join me every thursday on the alex simon chill and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then.

later. this is bone bust broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. i'm bart chilton and thank you for ensuring us coming up today and we look at the market reactions to the trade those from yesterday both stocks and commodities and we consider if u.s. markets are topping off and a rebalancing might be in order where would invest years move their money now you must lama think markets joins us from.